


Lonely Child

by olivemartini



Series: Good Intentions [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Family, Fighting, Molly's POV, hidden moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly had known all along that Percy would be the child to leave her, but she never thought it would happen quite like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely Child

Molly had always known Percy would be the one to leave her. 

Her children were wanderers.  Their hearts would pull them down a thousand different roads, each one more dangerous and heartbreaking than the last, but she wasn't worried.  They might be barely more than children, but they are children who so actively seek out the moments where adrenaline is pumping through your lungs and you're gasping for breath, who believe that every second not fighting against something ( _for something)_ is a second wasted.  They would go on their adventures, but in the end, they would need a home to return to.  They would return to her.

Percy was never like the others.  Molly knew that there was something different about him, but she never thought it would matter.  He was quiet, and even though she watched him retreat further and further into his world of make believe, holding his books up in front of his face as if they could shield him from his brother's indifference, she didn't think it would be a problem.  She didn't think anything of it when his ambition seemed to grow bigger than might be wise, just fueled the fire, because she thought that he needed a shot of confidence. When she got letters home about Percy's excellence, she never hesitated to use them as a standard that the others must reach, not noticing the resentment growing between his brothers.  It had been her foolish belief that the grades were a product of his own ambition, his own wants, not the need for her to really see him, to be given as much attention as the others.  She never really saw him until it was too late.

Molly knew that he would leave, because he was unhappy, and needed someone to blame for it.  She had known for a long time that he was just looking for his way out, just searching for the leg up that could lead him to success.  She's not sure that he really wanted success, but rather a thing to throw back in the face of his classmates, his brothers, his father, herself, anyone that wouldn't give him the time and love he thought he deserved.  And he did deserve it, Molly knew.  Molly knows now, staring at him as he and his father yells at each other, that Percy's perfection was just a desperate plea for help that she never answered. 

Her husband and her son are on opposite sides of the table, a shield charm cast between them.  She never wanted this, never wanted to lose a child like this, never meant to make him feel this way, but it didn't seem to matter.  Fred and George are standing off to the side, wands half pulled from their robes, faces a mask of fury but sad underneath the surface, fear clear in their eyes.  Ginny is fighting against Ron, who are both adding their own curses to the din.  Ginny is yelling at Percy, saying words that Molly wasn't even aware she had learned, and Ron was begging for her to stop fighting.  Molly couldn't hear any of it.  It was muffled, like she was underwater, drowning in a memory from years ago that she had forgotten.

It was the same kitchen, same table, but only with her and a much younger Percy.  It had been some break or another, in his second or third year, and she had asked him about his friends.  "I don't have any," Percy had said, staring at her like she was a bit daft.  Seeing her face, he hastened to explain, to take away the pain she was showing, "But don't worry, mum.  I didn't expect to."

She had trouble finding her voice, hidden as it was behind the lump in her throat, but she wished she had stayed silent.  The explanation behind his words was worse than anything she could have dreamed up on her own.  "The hat tried to put me in Slytherin, but I asked for Gyffindor.  It warned me that I wouldn't do well there, that I could be in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff if I wanted a different house, but I insisted.  I knew how much you and dad counted on all of us being in Gryffindor."

"I guess that's why I don't fit in here.  You're all Gryffindors, and I'm not."  This last bit was a little dejected, and she watched her little boy staring down in his oatmeal, carefully arranging his features in a mask of indifference. 

"You do fit in."  She sat down across from him.  "Tell you what.  You and I will go out somewhere this week, and we can talk.  Would that make you feel better?"  And he had shaken his head yes, smiling, the unspoken thank you of a boy who didn't know how to ask for help. 

And now, watching her husband and that same boy scream at each other, it occurred to her that they never did go.  In fact, she can't remember ever asking him about it again, ever giving him any extra attention at all.  She had decided, stupidly, that out of her remaining children he was the one who needed it the least.  He turned to go, pausing at the doorway to stare back at her, with the same look of fake bravado he had worn that morning, and she felt her heart break. 

Percy was leaving, as she knew he would.   And she knew that the rest of his siblings were from a mold he could never hope to match, a completely different type of person, and that he knew it to.  Molly thought that he would have realized that it didn't matter to her and Arthur, had intended to let him know, but it apparently didn't matter.  It didn't matter at all, because she was suddenly staring at his back, and then the door, and everything was quiet.

When the war ended, there were so many children left all alone.  Molly had vowed that even though her house was small, she would turn it into a home for every last, lonely child.  She had no idea that one of them had been under her roof the whole time.


End file.
